So it came about—I can see it from all our conversations entered in the red books in those days—that we did not and could not think of anything at that time except the result of the present national duel.
Our happiness, our poor happiness, we had it, but we dared not enjoy it. Yes, we possessed everything that might have procured for us a heaven of delight on earth—boundless love, riches, rank, the charming, growing boy Rudolf, our heart’s idol Sylvia, independence, ardent interest in the world of mind; but before all this a curtain had fallen. How dared we, how could we taste of our joys while around us every one was suffering and trembling, shrieking and raving? It was as if one should set oneself to enjoy oneself heartily on board a storm-tossed vessel.
“A theatrical fellow, this Trochu,” Frederick told me—it was on August 25. “Such a coup de theâtre has been played off to-day! You will never guess it.”
“The women called out for military service?” I guessed.
“Well, it does concern the women; but they are not called out. On the contrary.”
“Then are the sutlers discharged? or the Sisters of Mercy?”
“You have not guessed it yet, either. There is something of dismissal in it to be sure, and as to sutlers, too, in the sense that these ladies minister the cup of pleasure, and in a sense the ladies dismissed are merciful too; but in short, without more riddles, the demimonde is exiled.”
“And the Minister of War has taken that step? What connection——?”
“I cannot see any either. But the people are in ecstasies over the regulation. In fact they are always glad when anything happens. From every new order they expect a change, like many sick folks who greet every medicine which is given them as possibly a panacea. When vice is driven out of the city—so think the pious—who knows whether Heaven, now evidently angry, will not again extend its protection over the inhabitants? And now, when people are preparing for the serious time of the siege, with all its privations, what have these silly, wasteful women of pleasure to do here? And so most people, excluding those concerned, think the regulation a proper, moral, and besides, a patriotic one, since a great number of these women are foreigners, English, Southerners, nay even Germans, some of whom may perhaps be spies. No, no; there is only room in the city now for her own children, and only for her virtuous children!”
On August 28 occurred something still worse. Another banishment. All Germans had to quit Paris within three days.